Kumamoto
by Proverbial Pumpkin
Summary: K and Tohma take a week off from NG. All cuteness and snarkiness, with zero plot involved. KxTohma.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Kumamoto

**Author**: Proverbial Pumpkin

**Summary**: PWP. I repeat: PWP. A series of snapshots as K and Tohma go on vacation. To be absolutely clear: This fic is all cuteness and snarkiness, with zero plot involved.

**Rating**: PG for now

**Pairing**: The usual.

* * *

It was August. We were just far enough away from the city for there to be dragonflies, and one whizzed past the window every once in a while. Tohma didn't look up from his laptop, the cool lighting in his modern study dimming everything outside the glass. We were at the beginning of what promised to be a healthy argument, and I was taking the lead on this one.

"Meanwhile I'm running around all day with two-thirds of a responsible band and one lunatic, and one spazoid producer who thinks you're going to eat him, and who'd probably enjoy it. And all day long you're not happy unless you're doing five times that much, so then I have to come home and watch you be all bogged down and annoyed."

Tohma was at his stark desk, flipping through a case of data CD's while I talked at him. "Do you have a point, K-san? Ryuichi gave an interview I need from two years ago, so I've got to find this very particular international press clipping, and it's hard to remember where it was from with you-"

"That's exactly what I'm talking about!" I threw my hands up. "Main tour season's over. You made a gazillion dollars. Yen. Can't we do something fun now? Chill out, go somewhere?"

"New Zealand, perhaps?"

I blinked. "Wow, well-"

"No, no." Tohma shook his head to himself and slid a disc back in its slip. "We were definitely on a mainland somewhere. If I have to go through the U.S. files I'm assigning it to Sakano."

"Sakano's part of Bad Luck."

Tohma shrugged. "But he works for me. And apparently I'll "eat him" if he doesn't do what I say."

"Tohma, can we _please_ go on a real vacation?"

That almost got his attention. He slowly finished retrieving another disc as he furrowed his brow. "A..._what_?"

I mocked his tone. "A... _vacation_." I gave him a toothy grin and a thumbs up. "Remember that time –that one time- Shuichi hit that streak and sold all those singles, and rode it for like, months? It was because Yuki Eiri took him away for a while!"

Tohma swiveled his chair towards me, disc still in hand, as if distrustfully interested. "I don't remember that." He was probably lying. He looked back to the CD and felt around in a drawer for his glasses while he squinted at the writing on the disc.

"Shuichi had been working hard, but just hit a block and could hardly even enjoy it." The seriously dysfunctional relationship and my system of bribery didn't seem pertinent. "Then Yuki took him away for a week, and that's all I want to do for you. Think of it like this, you're my Shuichi! And if I have to- _fuck_!"

Out of nowhere, he'd slung a CD directly at my face, and I barely registered it slicing through the air towards me before it dented into my cheekbone and clattered to the floor. It stung. Tohma's hand was still outstretched, his eyes cut at me.

"Tohma, what ...?" It didn't hurt so much, just... "What the hell?"

Tohma's hand dropped back to his side. "Do – not – compare me to Shindou-san."

Oh for the love of God. I rubbed at my cheek while he slipped his glasses on, assuming his "I'm ignoring you" face. "Tohma, you're wound up tighter than a clock. If you don't take a break with me, I'm going to lose it too. I swear, I'll knock you out and drag you off in a sack."

Tohma surveyed another CD. "Come, K-san, let's be civil."

"I'll punch you in the eye!"

He finally gave a short laugh at that, and tossed the disc in front of him. "What do you want me to say? I'm busy. As you so accurately pointed out, we just made a gazillion yen and now decisions have to be made about what to do with it."

I picked up the CD he'd ninja starred at my face and stuffed it back into place, giving the whole case a dramatic shove away from him. "I want a week off. Just let go of one week, and name a place, and I'll make all the arrangements."

He made a grab for his data files and I swiped them up and held them over my head. From his seat, he shook as head at me and adjusted his glasses. "You can have two weeks if you leave me out of it."

I was standing my ground on this one. I'd pester it out of him. "Abso-fucking-lutely not." He thought Ryuichi was persistent? He thought Shuichi was annoying? "One week, including you, or I'll let Shuichi run wild and leave Sakano to his own devices all month."

"You won't be paid, then."

"I'll quit doing the grocery shopping." Wasn't man's work anyway.

"Then perhaps we'll eat better for a change."

"I'll cut you off!"

Tohma actually laughed. "No you won't."

He had me there. "Okay, President of the Decade, what'll it take? All I want is a week with you somewhere that's not here, and somewhere where you won't be mauled by rabid fans."

He glanced at me over his glasses for a millisecond, and then took them off. "Alright, K-san." He stood up and slid his chair in place beneath the desk. "Kumamoto."

And he walked to the hall. I was exactly half a step behind him. "Wait, really? You really want to-"

"Lights."

I hopped back and turned his study lights off. "You really want to go?"

"What did I just say?"

I smiled and hooked my thumbs in my pockets, letting him go. We were going to the beach.

* * *

**A/N:** Three cheers for K and Tohma! Hip-hip hooray! Hip-hip hooray! Hip-hip hooray!


	2. Chapter 2

**Title**: Kumamoto

**Author**: Proverbial Pumpkin

**Summary**: PWP. I repeat: PWP. To be absolutely clear: This fic is all cuteness and snarkiness, with zero plot involved.

**Rating**: PG for now

**Pairing**: The usual.

* * *

It was an hour on NG's plane and we landed in the late afternoon. It's not that Tohma can't or won't take a regular flight like the common folk, but he can't exactly stroll through security with sunglasses on and by the time you hire a bodyguard and make arrangements with the airport, Tohma says he'd just as soon fly privately. We'd arranged to stay at the most expensive, over-indulgent accommodations Tohma could locate: on the grounds of a renovated feudal-era castle in Kumamoto, which was a coastal city in the far southwest.

This sounded exorbitant, but I didn't realize _just_ how ridiculous it was until I saw the site from the road. There was a large building, a picture of Japanese architecture from the curved roofs to the fifty feet of rocks it sat on, and several smaller towers of the same design a short distance away. They were all just as stately- all curves and straight lines, and overhangs and triangles. And they were _nice_. Tohma gestured to them from across the backseat in the taxi. "I think we're staying in one of those."

On the main street, we'd passed maybe seven actual hotels in the direct vicinity. But we were staying in a historical tourist attraction. "Holy... Tohma. Is this regular lodging? Can regular people stay here?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Can we... afford whatever you did to get us here?"

Tohma sat back in his seat while I peered out the taxi window. "Of course," he said closing his eyes, to emphasize that the lavish life was no big deal. "If it's close, we'll just siphon some funds from Bad Luck's accounts."

"Are you kidding?"

"No."

He was. And naturally we could afford it because Tohma was fucking rich as hell. "Sometimes... no offense Tohma, but sometimes I'm surprised you have even as clear a grasp on reality as you do. Who the heck can afford to sleep in castles on vacation?"

He shrugged, as we approached a main entrance at the far, far edge of the grounds. There was the city on our one side, and all green and trees and architecture and people strolling on the other. Tohma directed the driver to find another entrance that went all the way in. When we found it, it was an ornate but very closed-looking gate, made of wood and steel, with an employee standing sentinel. "I'll talk to him," Tohma told the driver, and rolled his window down as we pulled up.

"Why don't we just walk?" I asked.

Tohma waved down the guard –for lack of a better term – and took off his sunglasses. "What," he said to me, "from the regular entrance?"

"Yeah. Why don't we just walk from the visitor entrance?"

He looked at me. "Because I can get us in here." Evidently this was elementary.

"But it wasn't that bad a walk, and it looked nice."

"But I can get us in _here_." And he proceeded to do just that, smiling and dropping his name like it was a household word, and then he slid his sunglasses back on when we finally rolled up to wherever he decided we should get out. It was dusk, and the glasses would probably attract as much attention as they deterred. But if he was recognized he was toast, so there it is.

We each had a bag, and were at the foot of the bowed rock walls when he pulled out that damned bowler hat. The taxi hummed away smoothly.

"Tohma, you can't wear that out here."

"It's to cover my hair."

"Nope," I said. "Forget it. That thing makes you look just like yourself, and if I were a crazy Nittle Grasper fan, that hat would be the _first_ thing I'd notice." I ran a hand over the black rock. "There's no way this is four hundred years old."

Tohma glanced up at the house above the wall. I did, too, and felt small... which was funny in a way, because how much time did I spend in-between skyscrapers in Tokyo? The stones went up and in, and from there the main building went up even more. On our other side the rocks dipped down into a lake, some twenty feet below. Lake, wall, ground level grounds, wall, upper level castle. From where we were, so close we could touch the settled, weathered stones, we could only see the underside of the main building's first-level overhangs. The lights were being lit from behind purple screens, above us and across the way in the smaller subsidiary towers. We needed to be over there.

Tohma shifted his bag to his other hand and started walking. An employee smiled, probably sensing she was in the presence of wealth, and a couple tourists passed by without giving Tohma anything more than the usual glances he gets just for looking important. Seemed like he was safe with the glasses on, so I interlocked my fingers behind my head as we walked and felt pretty good about things. The early evening sky was clear and the sidewalk under our feet was simple. There were gravel and tufts of grass on either side of us, and soon we ended up at the entrance to a hallway with stone flooring, walled on one side so that it felt half-indoors, half-out. It was apparently Tohma's selected most efficient route towards the towers and he felt at liberty to stroll along it, though we were away from the regular visitors' area by now.

"This entire main part was rebuilt," Tohma said, gesturing behind us. "So it's nowhere near four hundred years. I think it was destroyed before the turn of the century."

"Which century?"

"This one, K-san," he said. "1877. Are you not familiar with this place at all?"

I couldn't tell if I was supposed to detect a hint of snootiness in that or not, so I hurried to catch up to a half a step ahead. "No, and excuse me, Mr. I-Suddenly-Care-About-My-Country's-Historical-Roots, for not being a Japanese history buff."

He looked surprised. "I didn't say you should be. It's just that this is sort of basic information, although I wouldn't expect any given businessman from California to be an expert." Even on vacation he walked with a purpose, his footsteps sounding smartly against the marble floor. The strip was naturally lit- and only barely, at this time of the day. "And I suppose it's like if we were in the States. I'd have no idea where, say, the last major Native American uprising took place. But I'm sure you could tell me all about it."

"Absolutely," I said, nodding. Somewhere between Canada and Mexico. We were half-way down the corridor between the main building and our smaller tower to the north. Soon the path opened up to an outdoor walkway, covered only above by crossbeams and a few long narrow planks sitting atop. We heard the chatter of the tourists dim a little into a low hum at our backs, and the purple and gold lighting from the main building behind us hit the far end of the walkway, where the tower doorway stood with a curtain across it. There, up ahead, two or three koi ponds stood at the entrance to the towers, with ledges a foot above the ground-level water. Tohma had almost reached them and hadn't even slowed down to take a look at any of it. He had one hand slipped into his coat pocket, and when he turned around loosely on one heel, to see what was keeping me, it pulled the material away from his dress shirt underneath. It was long-sleeved and dark, and the night, the purple from the main building, and the shadows from the crossbars all threw different colors across him.

"What is it?" he asked, smiling. Being outside might have chipped away a splinter of his Tokyo high-rise persona, and he was in a good mood. He also still had his sunglasses on.

"Tohma, for Christ's sake, I think you can take those off now."

"Hm? Oh, yes." Tohma reached for the entrance curtain with one hand as he started to slip the glasses in his pocket with the other. Then he happened to look down and said "look K-san," gesturing with his glasses to get my attention. "There must be twenty-five koi in here, or maybe... oh." He stopped.

I followed his gaze behind me. He'd finally noticed the display from the main building behind us, and he absent-mindedly let the curtain fall into place again as he took a few steps towards the direction we'd come. You could see it all from here- purple and yellow and black, the building and its dark foundation, a wall of rock that stood out from the lake at its foot. With night fallen there was finally a little breeze, and the lake was just receptive enough to toss back a little of the glow the purple cast on it. The castle's own light bounced off the ripples and up against its foundation, so that each ripple's white band of reflection traveled like a current down the contours of the rocks above. As the wind swept the surface water towards the stones, the bands moved from the top of the wall down to the point where it met the water, and so the ripple and its reflection converged.

From the upper ground level, small figures of tourists looked up at the curves and spires, the ridges of the triangle roof surfaces. On our side of the lake but barely at an angle, not a hundred yards away, the main building looked almost content behind us. I was hard pressed to discern any one light source from inside, but the purple and gold was there behind the screens, and it glowed.

I watched Tohma study it; it was so rare that he ever let himself be taken with something. I draped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him fractionally closer to me. "Not bad, is it?"

"No," he answered simply, and shook his head once. "No, it isn't." And for a minute there it was all very nice. Then I bent down and gave Tohma the tiniest, most unobtrusive kiss against his hair. Well, it may have come across as just a _little_ bit possessive or condescending, but damn. I mean, he was right there.

He pulled back immediately. "What the hell was that?"

"What?"

"You can't just walk around kissing people on the top of the head." He glanced around furtively and looked astonished, like I'd done something lecherous. Then he produced his hat back out from somewhere again and put it on resolutely, as if it were vital protection.

"I... what? I don't!" Apparently just paranoid, steely executives. "Would you relax?" I said. With just a hint of patronization.

"No," he snapped. "And you can kindly keep your public displays of affection, and your smug American height, to yourself."

If I could have zoomed out and gotten a look at us, there, squabbling like that, I probably would have laughed and blown it off. But up close, between the scenery and the water and the man I loved but apparently wasn't allowed to touch... I threw my hands up instead. "Tohma, would you listen to yourself?" I was ready to retract my earlier comment, about his grasp on reality. "You're as big a prima donna as Shuichi."

And then there was a split second before I realized...

"What did you say?"

... I'd done it again.

"Uh, I mean not _Shuichi_. And that's not to say-" I sputtered as Tohma adjusted his hat ever so slightly, silent. "I didn't mean..." I sounded like Sakano. At his worst.

"K-san, I'll _show_ you 'prima donna.'" Then, with a move faster than I'd ever seen Tohma make, one hand alone shot out flat against my chest-

And almost as soon as I registered that I was off-balance, I was down. Smack into the koi pond and thirty fish scattered, little flits of koi skirting against the material of my clothes as I took a second, from the floor, to process what had just happened. After the first slosh, the clear water was settling down around me, a little of it splattered over the edge. I sat up leaning back on my elbows, with my ass flat on the bottom of the pond, and one foot flush in the water and the other semi-dry on the ledge. There was a piece of wet leaf in my mouth.

And there was Tohma standing above me, smiling and supremely self-satisfied... until he realized he'd just pushed me into a motherfucking _koi pond_. "Oh... my. K-san!" And then he was knelt on the ledge, pulling at me as if the eight inches of pond could be my ultimate undoing. "Here, there you are. Are you... I can't believe this."

I squished over the ledge and started to shrug out of my wet jacket. I looked down, and only the front of my white dress shirt was still barely dry, with water from the back collecting and seeping towards the front at my waist. I looked like I'd been sprayed from behind with a hose. "I'm a little surprised myself," I said. "Mr. President, you're out of control."

"I'm sorry," he said, taking my jacket and uselessly trying to mat some of the water out. "Habit."

I spit out the remaining taste of koi water. "I don't even know what that means." Then I tried to wring out my hair, and the breeze blew the little droplets straight onto my pants. "Habit, that when someone pisses you off you shove them in a fish pond?"

He shrugged. "It could have been worse. Do you want this back?" he asked, holding out my jacket. "Your shirt is... um..." I watched him blink at the sopping white shirt material clinging to my side and stomach for a moment. "Not presentable."

"Tohma," I grinned, taking the jacket, "if you needed something to look at, couldn't you have just waited five minutes 'til we got to our super-exclusive rich people room in the sky? We'd _both_ be out of our clothes by now if you'd-"

"Just put it on!" he said sharply. Like I'm not allowed a good rip or two after being tossed in a bin with a bunch of huge, gaping, disgusting fish.

Which were, of course, really quite pretty.

* * *

Back in Tokyo, I'd been a little indignant when Tohma told me we had to spring for the suite with separate sleeping quarters. Maybe 'floored' is a better term. But he'd been very patient – or maybe he was just afraid I was outraged enough to start throwing things – and assured me it was just a technicality. "K-san, we're taking a chance just giving the Kumamoto people my name. Do you honestly think it would be a good move for us to show up together, arranged to sleep in the same room?"

I was ten words into a prickly response before he even finished, angry gesticulations and all. Maybe I _would_ start throwing things, just to make sure he understood the magnitude of this offense. In a hurried attempt to mollify me, Tohma had pulled up an e-mail and described the precise layout. "Would you listen to me, once? It's practically one big room, just with a divider."

I squinted at the screen. "Looks like a _wall_ to me. I can't believe you think we're-"

"It's made of paper, K-san, and it slides across over itself. It's traditional. We'll use the same key, and look how big the beds are. We'll be separate on their records but actually together. I promise."

I'd straightened back up and crossed my arms. "How'd you get all these details? Are they online?"

"I inquired," he'd said simply, closing the laptop. "I was concerned, too."

So I let it go because in Tohma-speak, that was close to a compliment.

Now that we'd made it there, to the site, me a little damp and Tohma remarking on a small deficiency in the receptionist, it felt like we'd come a longer way than we had. I suppose it was because we'd left the city in the afternoon, and flown and taxied and walked, that it felt a little later than it was. Our suite-room was behind one of two wide, tasteful doors on the third floor, and I wasn't convinced when Tohma warned me to keep it down because there were people in the other rooms. Pretty sure he just didn't want me expecting anything raucous in the way of love-making while we were here. So maybe we'd start quiet, but the week was young yet.

There was a subtle modernity to the room, so that it reminded me of a cross between what I'd expected, and the types of hotels I used to stay at every couple of weeks in the city, when I was still living in the States. There was a broad desk with two vase-shaped lamps over it, and over-head lighting controlled by a regular switch on the wall. There was a lot of wood, and things like paper paneling and a low table, but on the whole the place was sleek.

"Didn't want to go all the way authentic?" I asked him, tossing down my bag. The bed was large. Good, good.

He shrugged. "It's just how the room happened to be. Anyway," he said, sliding open the bathroom door and glancing in, "I've had a small share of what you call 'authenticity.' Mika-san's parents were from a small town in the northeast. It was almost archaic. I couldn't avoid being there sometimes, and anyway Eiri-san was there for a few years. Their parents barely even used electricity during the day, and he hated it. He always said-"

Tohma finally shut the hell up when he caught a look at my face, and laid his bag down with considerable more care than I had. "Nevermind. I assume you want to go ahead and take a shower. I'll go see if there are other people here."

"How do you plan on doing that? Just stroll downstairs and demand to know who they are? I'm not sure we're exactly entitled to that kind of information, Tohma."

He picked up the key from a counter and slid them in his pocket, heading towards the door. "I'm entitled to whatever I want." He wasn't being flippant. Well, at least he'd finally come out and said it. "Remember we're paying them, a generous amount. If we want to know how much privacy we have, they owe me that at the very least."

"Mm-hmm." I started stripping out of my clothes, glancing around for towels. "And if you say they owe you, I guess that makes it true." My shirt wasn't dripping anymore, but it was a relief to peel out of it, and the layer beneath. "But if that's how it works, I say _you_ owe _me_."

He had one hand on the doorknob, and turned back for a moment. "Is that right?"

I pulled my belt off and moseyed forward enough to toss some dry clothes in the bathroom, and gave him an overconfident smile. Then I leaned one shoulder against the wall in front of him, and because he was Tohma, it was hard to tell if his expression was so expectant because I was sauntering around half-naked or because he was waiting for an answer. "That's right. For drenching me." I gestured down, ostensibly at my damp pants. Really, it just gave him a chance to look me over. He cleared his throat.

"K-san, we quite literally just got here."

"It's been at _least_ six minutes. And I think this is a decision for someone who hasn't thrown anyone in a fish pond recently."

"It doesn't quite work that way. But maybe we can discuss it when I get back."

I smirked at him and slid a finger along the backside of his hip as he left. Overkill, maybe, but I can be an arrogant asshole with my shirt off and Tohma knew that going in. Or at least he should have. I didn't expect it to be much of a discussion.

* * *

I took the fastest shower of my life, so that when Tohma opened the door and came back inside in that unsuspecting way, all I had to do was give him a welcome-back leer, lock the door behind him, and slip my arms around his waist.

He flinched and swatted at me like he would an insect. "Why are you still only wearing pants? I met the men across the hall- there're more of them upstairs." He stopped walking, irritated, when I held him back, but kept talking as if he wasn't being pawed at. It was probably his least effective deflection tactic yet. "They're Dutch and Finnish ambassadors from some international heritage organization. They – ah – talked for some time about..." Precisely what they talked about for some time became less important as I undid one of Tohma's shirt buttons from behind, leaning down just far enough so he could feel my breath on his ear. He let me slip his hat off, or maybe he didn't notice. "About... the..."

And that was it. Every once in a while Tohma will let these little losing battles of his go without a fight, and my job became a lot easier when he turned around in my arms and pressed his front against mine, kissing me more roughly than I'd expected. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Tohma was almost as strong as I was, but not when he had his mouth locked over mine, and he ground his hips flush against mine, hooking two fingers in either of my belt loops and pulling himself closer into me. I realized with a jolt, and a surge of blood downward, that Seguchi Tohma was trying hard not to dry hump me on the spot. The front of my pants was now a serious hindrance.

I drew just barely back long enough to smile at him, and he audibly caught his breath once. "Shirt," I ordered. Without a second of hesitation his fingers flew to working on his own remaining buttons, his eyes glazing but glued on me. My hands slid up to his hair and then down on either side of his throat, and when I slid my thumbs along his neck, I could feel the sound that escaped from him as easily as I could hear it. He tore his shirt off impatiently, stripping the sleeves off behind him and letting it drop to the floor. Next was his undershirt. Even it was high quality, white and cool against my arms. It was very fine, and smooth- maybe even part silk.

I could have torn it with my teeth if he took another second. "Off," I growled into his ear, and after a moment's exhale he reached for the bottom hem with both hands...

At the exact moment something started buzzing on the floor.

We froze.

And again, now with a ring. His cell phone, in his pocket. Tohma groaned once at the second ring, and started to shift. I grabbed both his wrists. "Don't even think about it."

He shook his head, not speaking. The sound was jarring. I let go and watched, completely infuriated and my mind going in about three directions, as he took a step away, dazed but slowly coming back to himself. "It's too late to be NG," he said apologetically, with all the rationale he could force into his voice when we'd been minutes away from sex. "It could be important."

I was very close to physical pain. "It had better be." My voice was strained, but not nearly as strained as the rest of me felt.

He glanced at the screen and then held up the offending gadget as evidence. "It is, see?"

I could only glare. If Tohma had listened to himself, if he could have heard his voice still light and unfocused, airy from what was almost a sexual high... he wouldn't answer in a hundred years, no matter who –

"Hello, Sakuma-san? Is everything alright?"

Oh hell no. "Nuh-uh," I demanded, making a lunge for the phone. "No fucking way."

Tohma shouldered me away and squinted a little as he tried to concentrate on whatever the little twerp was saying on the line.

"Tohma, I'm not kidding. Get off." I made another grab and he shot me a look.

"Sakuma-san, just one moment." He covered the receiver. "He's upset about something, K-san, what do you expect me to do?"

"Hang up, or I'll do it for you." Or maybe I'd toss Tohma out the window and into the koi pond from up here. One more swipe, and he back-handed me away.

"K-san. You had better step back."

That wasn't a tone I heard too often, even from him. So I stepped back, resigning myself to a few more minutes of discomfort and then probably another shower- this one cold. Tohma sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward on his knees as he listened.

I could hear Ryuichi's voice. Here was Tohma finally out of his twenty layers of professional clothes, or at least most of them, his hair a little messed up, and his thin shirt was white enough to make his skin look just a shade tanner than usual. And he'd wasted the last sixty seconds of this on Sakuma Ryuichi. The little cretin probably did this kind of thing on purpose, somehow. I'd watched him for three years. Guy could take care of himself. But the second he called, Tohma just _bought_ it, like his friend was helpless and so damn important.

"Don't you remember me telling you I'd be gone for a while? Sakano-san will get you anything you need...yes... A week." Tohma listened for a moment and then his eyes flickered to me. "He's in California. Right. He'll be along too." Tohma smiled to himself at whatever was said next, an uncharacteristically gentle smile that would have been heartwarming if I weren't ready to punch them both in the face. "No. No one's leaving you." Then his voice got a fraction quieter and he said, "Of course, I miss you too."

I looked at him a moment as he said good-bye, and pulled my shirt back over my head as he got off. Tohma sighed and tossed the phone next to him on the bed.

"I wish you wouldn't get so angry over things like this," he said to me. "You know he's... special."

"Fine," I said, sharply. "So he's special. But did you honestly think something was actually _wrong_? Why can't you ever put your wildly important billionaire life and your wildly important billionaire friends on hold, even for me? Get up, please."

He got up and I got in bed, fully clothed and angry about it. And maybe throwing a little bit of a fit. But if I hadn't earned a good sulk that night, no one in Japan had. I barely even noticed how nice the bed was, how easily it gave beneath me, because I was that angry about how much sleeping I was about to do in it. I turned over, facing the paper divider and the soft yellow light from the other side of the suite.

Tohma didn't say anything for a minute, and then I heard the paper screen sliding across and I watched Tohma survey they other quarter. "Do you want me to sleep in here?" he asked from the threshold.

"Do what you want." I knew he'd sleep in the other room.

He didn't answer and I heard him move around for a minute, and then each of the lights went off one at a time, and I heard the shower start. I listened to the water for a while, until it stopped. Then the divider panel was slid shut again in the dark, but I heard Tohma's quiet footsteps still on this side. And then I felt the bed dip slightly behind me as he crept in, careful not to wake me and even more careful not to touch me. I could sense space, cold air between us, and heard Tohma sigh quietly once, to himself.

And well, then I just felt like a jerk.

* * *

**A/N:** Why oh why is this so long. This is what happens when I feel like writing but don't feel like thinking. Scenes upon scenes of whatever. You can tell I still haven't let go of the idea of a K vs. Ryuichi duel for Tohma, maybe in a later fic. Rating will go up next chapter because K deserves some lovin'.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title**: Kumamoto

**Author**: Proverbial Pumpkin

**Rating**: PG

**Pairing**: YUKI AND SHUICHI. Just kidding, that'd be weird. The usual K/Tohma.

* * *

Tohma wasn't there when I woke up. I mean, he was around somewhere, but from the looks of things had showered and dressed and taken a key card out by the time I even rolled out of bed. He'd even attempted to make up his half of the bed with me still sleeping in mine. The pillow was straightened and the left-hand side sheets were nicely tucked together, until the wrinkles started from where I'd pulled at them. It was funny-looking, ridiculous really, and I laughed.

Then I started deciding whether last night warranted apologizing. Tohma and I fucking hated apologizing to each other. Little things, no big deal. 'Oh, did you want that last linden fruit?' Chomp. 'Sorry.' Or all too often 'were you seriously hoping to land that option for Bad Luck? I'm sorry, K-san, but surely Nittle Grasper would be a better representation of -" our longevity and creativity and blah blah blah. Little 'sorries' that don't and shouldn't mean much. But take something actually gone wrong, one of us actually bothered, and it's hard for the other to suck it up, stick a crowbar into his ego, and tear out an apology. It was a little easier for Tohma, but only because he didn't usually mean it.

I could hear his voice just outside in the hallway, presumably talking to the Swedish historians. Or whomever else he'd managed to schmooze in the last twelve hours. Honestly, it was like a compulsion with him. I heard the door lock click from the outside and Tohma came in, with a purpose.

"K-san, did we plan anything for today?"

He was dressed pretty smartly, for vacationing two miles from the coast, but I was just glad he wasn't in a suit. I pulled open a drawer and tried to find something that wouldn't look ragamuffin by comparison. "Good morning to you too," I said. "I thought we'd go to the coast off the west town." I glanced up at him from my clothes. "After I apologized for being a tight ass last night."

"Oh. Well, do you want to make it up to me?"

Tohma's one of those people who's almost never really asking for your input. But he was also giving me a way out. So I said "... yes?" as I started out of the pants I'd slept in.

Tohma pushed the room divider closed, so it compacted in on itself and we got light in from both windows. He pulled out his phone and sat on the corner of the half-made bed while I got dressed. "I've got some things to take care of today," he began.

"Oh, for God's sake!" I said, throwing down my wad of pants for effect. He was unimpressed.

"Our spokesman's just quit," he said levelly.

Quit? I raised my eyebrows. Okay, so it was important. NG had a pretty untouchable PR team, and Tohma was responsible for keeping it that way. Our primary spokesman was a big deal – Tohma had hired a headhunter just to steal him from another company. "What's his problem?"

Tohma waved a hand, scrolling through something on his phone with the other. "Personal. I've known he was leaving since last year, but it wasn't supposed to be until next spring. I haven't even assembled a team to find his replacement. Idiot," he said to himself. "I should have some calls coming in soon. I have to take them."

"Alright, so we do that today. I'll help. Can we at least go outside?"

Tohma had an initial response, but thought better of it and closed his mouth. Obviously he'd expected an annoyed acquiescence, not a compromise. But we were already here, in Kumamoto. "Well – yes. Yes, of course. There's supposed to be a garden around here, somewhere."

"A garden?" That'd be a first for us. "Garden of what?"

"Plants, I suppose."

So Tohma passed his phone off to me while he felt around for his key and sunglasses and a small leather-covered notepad he kept for just such occasions. And then we went out, back onto the grounds.

* * *

We'd seen the castle, walked right up against it. But what we'd missed in the dusk last night were the gardens on the opposite side. We went out our lodging tower through the back, and there was no missing them now. They spread the entire back third of the property, green and wood and moving water all fenced in by thin, unobtrusive white gating that only peeked through vines and white flowers. Two entrances fed into the garden, with flat gravel slabs directing the pedestrian way until it turned into a gravel path. We stood just inside for a moment, assessing. There were benches half-visible behind butterfly bushes and wooden arches and the twists and turns of the pathway. It felt stranger than ever now, being so far away from Tokyo with Tohma of all people. I gestured towards a cherry-brown colored bench near a corner, surrounded on the back side by the leaves of the perimeter. "As good a place to do business as any, I guess."

He smiled, even as he lifted his sunglasses so he could read a message on his phone. He didn't even look up from it as I steered him to the seat.

"There's really no one here, Tohma."

His eyes flitted up to the green and colors around us, to double check in case I was stupid or lying, I supposed, and then he set his glasses on top of his head. "I'm going to set the priority list of candidates myself," he said with finality, as if I'd been privy to his train of thought. "I'm not going to use a team." He looked up at me for my reaction.

I shrugged. "That's a lot of work you shouldn't have to do. What about your new head of the press department? Don't you trust him to do any of this? Or all of it?"

"I trust _her_ to execute my decision competently. I don't trust her to make it for me." He finally situated himself on the dark wood of the seat, leaning against its low back. "We don't hold regular interviews for this position. It's not like I've got a bench of potential spokesmen..." The sun shone directly in his eyes, and mine, but it was a softer orange light. We had a few hours of morning left. I looked out across the garden, surveying while I let Tohma talk.

"But I only need three or four good candidates," he said. "If I select them directly, I'll be shocked if we don't get our first or second pick." He finished his thought and then regarded me for a second, almost smiling. "You know, you've built up something of a presence in the past few years here. If I thought there was another manager in the country who could handle Bad Luck as well as you, I might want you for this job."

Tohma doesn't give compliments. He announces facts that may or may not be complimentary. But I still took a second to gauge if he was serious. "What, find another gun-wielding American who speaks Japanese and knows the industry in both countries?" I said. "Or are you gonna shift me over and stick the dependable Hiroshi Nakano as manager and artist in Bad Luck?"

He looked at me squarely for a second, and put his pen down. "Now there's an idea."

"Don't you dare."

"It would mean a raise for you," he said. "And as you say, Nakano-san is very responsible. He probably pays more attention to your responsibilities than you do."

"Forget it," I answered. "And don't try to manipulate me into thinking it was my idea, either. Bad Luck is mine."

I detected a gleam in his eye that told me he'd come very near to taking that as a challenge. Nearly. Part of his attention went back to his phone. "You didn't mind terribly when we took back Sakuma-san."

"Ryuichi doesn't need managing if he's got you." As I knew all too well. "I've still got work to do with Bad Luck."

"I see." Tohma let it go, which told me he'd only been testing the waters in the first place. He also looked satisfied with me, pleased by something I'd said, and I was wary of the sense of satisfaction that gave _me_.

Sometimes I figured Tohma's empire would never fall. He'd keep it going one employee at a time if he had to. And I pitied the poor bastard who answered Tohma's phone call without a ready defense for not crawling in to work for NG. Tohma would get him in a heartbeat. And the thing of it was, no matter where he'd come from, the poor bastard would be better off for it.

We sat there for a while, while thin ranks of clouds rolled in and thickened. Tohma was glad because he could read the text easier against the LCD backlight on his phone. I was glad because he could keep his sunglasses off. In Tokyo, clouds, like nighttime, made things difficult in public for Nittle Grasper and Bad Luck. When it's not sunny in the city, sunglasses draw the wrong sort of attention to artists. But here, no sun meant no people in the first place. The back grounds, for the time being, were ours.

Tohma was making lists on his notepad – probably flowcharts and diagrams too, for all I knew. Every once in a while he'd throw out a name. "Frederich Barheimmer?" he said, doubtfully, absolutely maiming the name with his accent. "You worked with him in America, right?"

"Knew him. Didn't work with him. He still does half his press conferences in German. We didn't have much to say to each other. I wouldn't recommend him, if you can afford to be picky."

"Right." The name was crossed off. Then the number two press guy at Step80's music channel, then a lady Tohma had fired himself four years earlier, who had admittedly done very well elsewhere. I knew she wouldn't last long on the list – once Tohma's through with you, he's more or less through.

Tohma didn't like his shortlist dwindling.

"This is a waste of time," he eventually said, frustrated and crumpling up a page from his pad. "No one at the higher ranks in these other companies are as good as the people I've built up in NG. I'm staying inside the company."

"Good," I said. Maybe I was old-fashioned, but I trusted NG more than the other guys anyway. "That narrows things down."

"To Rushino-san."

"Really?" Interesting choice. Another headhunted press guy we'd stolen. "He hasn't been here that long. You don't think Step80's going to make a move to get him back?"

"I do," Tohma said. "And they can offer him a press coordinator job comparable to what he's got here. But they won't fire any spokespeople for him if he's already established as our top one. And he's professional, he'll do good work."

"Sounds reasonable."

"And you're right, he hasn't been here eight months. He still has some contacts, some allegiance to Step80, I'm sure of it. But think of the nature of the new position. As spokesperson? It will certainly send Step80 the image of him being wholly aligned with us now. And until the transition's cemented, we won't have to trust him with any actual information, or decisions. Until he's grounded here, we just need an appealing mouthpiece."

I sat back and watched him send his e-mail, presumably to the press department head. "I'll have them inform Rushino-san he's up for a promotion, pending an interview with the head, and a final consultation on my return," he said.

"You don't want to double-check his qualifications or anything?"

Tohma rolled his eyes, slipping his phone in his pocket. "I hired him, K-san. His qualifications are the same as they were, with the additional eight-month experience at the biggest music company in east Asia."

"Fair enough."

And that, friends, was Seguchi Tohma behind the scenes. Just as decisive and _correct_ as he was at his desk and with the media.

Satisfied, he took a moment to regroup from business mode, looking around the garden again as though we'd just arrived. "The air's rather filtered here, isn't it?" he commented.

I nodded. Kumamoto was its own city nearby, but it smelled like the coast here. And not Tokyo Bay coast. Southwestern coast. I didn't know gardens. And without the little information cards I couldn't tell the first thing about what sort of plants these were, to thrive in fresh, salty air. But there was something natural about this place you wouldn't expect in a cultivated spot where heritage tourists stopped in almost every afternoon. Even under a sky that was getting dark mid-day, there was a cleanness here, a purity that just barely straddled the line between civilization and the natural world. To our east was the building, with its high roofs and cliff down to the lake. To our west, two miles away, was the ocean.

Putting his sunglasses in his jacket, Tohma stood and walked a few yards away, observing with his arms crossed, the gravel crunching quietly under his steps. I stayed, leaning back further and crossing my ankles in front of me, with an eye on him. When the sun was low and bright he'd barely glanced at the garden; now that the sky was white and grey, and the first drops of rain were beginning to tap down on the flat leaves around us, he took a keen interest in it all. He walked a little ways down the path in front of the bench, past a low waterfall over stones to his right, and past flowers in patches of color, and through a wooden arch I could tell was ornately carved from ten yards away.

When he uncrossed his arms, it was to squat down and rest them on his knees, hands loosely clasped at the fingers, as he took a closer look at something closer to the ground. I waited. He was still, surrounded by points of small movements as leaves and vines on either side of the path were jostled from the rain. The side hems of his jacket just barely didn't touch the ground, while the pebbles of the pathway beneath us darkened, wet. Beyond him, a small bird flitted over the clearing of the path and into a brush somewhere, headed for cover. Tohma didn't pay it any mind. Eventually I made my way over, past the broad leaf bushes and white blossoms and purple vines clinging to the arches... to where Tohma was squatted in front of a patch of very plain, dark-green plants. They were nothing, not two feet tall, no flowers. They didn't even have an identification card with their scientific name. They were just there, just part of what made the garden green. I knelt on one knee beside him.

"Look at that," he said, gesturing. I looked, and just saw a long-leafed plant. I looked a little closer then, and saw he pointed at the rain drops, collected on the wide leaves that arched from the ground to the tip, leaves that hung inches above each other in layers. They had tiny plant fibers on their tops that held the little half-spheres of water together. And each drop, rather than the clear color of rain, held a striking, vivid blue tint. Against the striated green of the leaf, they were tiny little pools of aquamarine. As if the rain were blue, spotting it.

Tohma looked at me like he expected something, and I looked up at the sky. Completely grey. He laughed, and said "no, here." Then with one long, keyboardist's finger he turned up a single broad leaf, tipping the rain drops to the soil and exposing the leafy underside. It was a bold, blue-green color, shimmering grey in the rain. The drops on each leaf were reflecting the stark blue from the bottom-side of the leaves above, so that cool hues were held and refracted to other little drops on the plant. It was a subtle web of light with no lines – just points at all depths of the plant.

It was no big deal in a way, and in a way it was remarkable.

At least, it was once you knelt down and stuck your face in it. I straightened up to take it in from the middle of the path. How did Tohma even notice it, walking along like that? He stood up too, facing me with his back to the plants. The blue of the drops were barely specks from six feet up, but they were still there. Tohma's hair and the shirt material over his shoulders were damp. He was smiling, pleased with himself.

It was just a leaf, just rain. But out here, away from Tokyo, I felt like I was seeing something of him, something very small, for the first time.

"Tohma, you must be..." I didn't know what I thought he must be, at that moment. "Unique."

He laughed once, straightening his jacket and feeling that his phone was safe in his pocket. Like it was time to go. If it had rung right then, he would have answered it and whoever was calling would have no idea Tohma was in a place like this. "Well. It's not like the world needs two of me," he said.

I caught a strain of the shallow tone in his voice, the persuasive humility he uses in public, and grabbed his arm lightly before he slipped away. "I mean it," I said. "How is there even space inside your head for all the people you are?"

That surprised him. He knew then he'd let me see something that he for some reason didn't want seen. And he was disconcerted, but didn't take a step back. He didn't want to tread on any of the long, striated leaves at his feet.

"There... There's only one of me, K-san."

_Isn't that the truth._ But I didn't say it. I just kissed him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** ...Does anyone still read this pairing? (Also, this isn't the last chapter.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Title**: Kumamoto

**Author**: Proverbial Pumpkin

**Pairing**: The usual.

* * *

Tohma warned me that the spokesman crisis would cut our trip short, so the day before we were set to leave needed to go well. Not that every day hadn't been golden time away from Tokyo. It was just... well, the nights.

After all, our first evening had turned into a wreck. Next night, fair enough, Tohma was commandeered by those emergency NG press arrangements and the third day he'd discovered that the Norwegian historians were actually backed by a company of some interest to him, and it goes without saying they took an interest in Tohma. I would have liked to have a go at them myself, but he professionally and somewhat threateningly called dibs. He came back to our room after one o'clock in the morning with a new contact for Nittle Grasper's next international tour and a mostly full drink.

"Do you want this?" he said, closing the door behind him and heading towards the sink. He spoke more slowly than usual, his words deliberate.

I uncrossed my ankles on the bed, and sat up to squint at the glass. Vodka. "Are you about to dump it out?"

"Yes."

"I'll take it," I said, getting up. Nevermind that we had a chrome mini-fridge fully stocked with better stuff. "Since it looks like you're several up on me." When he passed it off, it looked like his depth perception had taken a hit.

He nodded, unsteadily loosening his tie. "Their investor had never even heard of NG." Tohma hated these occasional western European reminders that his company still had ground to cover. "It took me four hours. Four hours, I've been drinking with those men. And I could barely understand them to begin with." He was concentrating on his own words.

I took a drink. He'd gone out with a sponsor in mind. "So? Did you get it?"

Tohma produced two business cards, with handwritten notes on the backs, and held them up between two fingers. "Two concerts in Germany and a tentative one in Finland. Denmark." He checked the card. "Finland. I'm getting ready for bed."

Took the words out of my mouth. I was waiting patiently for him when he got out of the bathroom, and pulled back the cover for him, next to me.

"K-san, I'm not doing anything with you in this condition." He turned off the lamp. "Anyway, you don't want to be 'that guy,' do you?"

It was a phrase he'd heard me use in English. It didn't make a whole lot of sense in Japanese. But I still deflated as he crawled in next to me. "I wouldn't call it my express desire, no, but it wouldn't particularly bother me."

He smiled, inebriated, and turned over. Goddamn it.

* * *

So I knew that later when our last evening rolled around, I'd have to make it count. Until then, Tohma had to do some things in the morning and then we finally made it to the coast.

I'd resigned myself to Japan's beaches years before. Coming from southern California, I'd more or less had to readjust my expectations and get used to the cold waters, the coarse sand, and the rocky shores so much of the rest of the world suffers through. California beaches are bright, colorful, crowded, and difficult to replicate.

This place didn't try. They were oystering in Kumamoto long before questionably tanned girls bounced about the shores of San Diego.

"Keep going," Tohma told our cab when we arrived at something resembling a public access. "Further down." And that's how we ended up three miles south of the small patch of regular beach-goers, buttoning our jackets as the wind curled in from the water and looking across to the adjacent peninsula and sea in absolute privacy.

We were a few dozen yards from the water line and the first thing I did was toss my keys on the sand, and then my shoes.

"Really?" Tohma asked.

"What, shoes? You better believe it." Forget the cold – we were at the beach. "Rule number one, bare feet."

"Hm." Tohma secured both hands in his jacket pockets and looked down the beach a moment, towards the Kumamoto access. He'd tried to forego any strict office ensemble today, and the result was Tohma in a collared dark blue shirt under his jacket, and khakis I'd only seen him wear once in eight months. He dropped the shirt down too, re-donning his jacket over his white undershirt.

"Come on," I said, nodding the other way. I lingered a few steps towards the water line, letting Tohma catch up with me. He'd had the foresight not to wear his polished work shoes, but he stayed just safe of the water. I, on the other hand, immediately was in it half-way up my shins. "There's no need to be so careful, Tohma. The water's warmer than the air."

He watched the ripples move around the calves of my jeans a moment as I sloshed along further into the tide from him. The lower denim of my pants was soaked and clung to me. "You expect me to believe that?" he said. We walked along parallel to each other, ten feet apart.

"You didn't come all the way out to the beach just to stay out of the water, did you?" I made my way towards him, the tidal pools sucking at my pants with each step. "Come on. Shoes. It'll be warmer – you have the Winchester guarantee."

Tohma's expression indicated just how much he thought that was worth, but he finally gave in, carefully arranging his shoes safe from the incoming tide.

"Cell phone too," I called.

Stepping into ocean water and salting up a perfectly dry pair of khakis clearly rubbed against every habit Tohma had formed in his life, but I'd been patient with him all trip so he did it. He looked genuinely shocked that it was, in fact, not cold. He stood with both hands in his jacket again, assessing. I laughed at his expression, Tokyo prisoner that he was. That a man could live for so long so close to the water, and have it be so foreign to him, was a legitimate shame.

"Further out," I said. My jeans were soaked up to the knee by now, so it was all the same to me. "We're on a sand ridge though, so. A couple more steps and you'll be up to your hips."

He obviously didn't see it, but took my word. He stopped and looked back to the sand, his back to the waves another twenty yards away, and studied the rocky shore to our south. Just a bit inland, the shore elevated over itself, forming a low, bare cliff that lined the flat stretch of coast just below it. There were no sea oats or beach leaves up there, only creeping brown grasses that clung to the side of the overhang. "I wonder if the waterside used to look like this on the east coast."

"No idea." I snaked an arm around him from behind, careful of the ridge at my heels. "When was the last time you went to a beach? A real one, not Tokyo."

"I have no earthly... well, eight years ago, I guess. Maybe nine. In the States. The water was colder there."

"Probably wasn't. The air was just warmer. When the tide comes in the wind will die down some, and it'll warm up here."

He shrugged, scanning the inland horizon line to the southwest of us. "You're the expert."

He was being cooperative. It almost made me feel guilty for a second, before I cleared my throat. "Anyway now that you're further out here, where the air's saltier, the wind won't feel as cold anymore because salt retains heat. You can't tell because you're acclimated to your jacket and it keeps the salt off your skin."

Tohma didn't like learning new things from me.

"I'll show you. Here, take it off." I moved in front of him, between him and the shore, and took his jacket from him. "Trust me."

So there Tohma stood in a white undershirt looking at me like I was full of shit. The waves were low, well behind him, and the wind ruffled his hair and the material of his shirt forward, towards the coastline behind me.

"This is ridiculous - it's the same, K-san. Of course it's still cold."

"Yeah," I said, "I know." Then, jacket slung over one arm, I reached out the other and pushed him fully into the water. He let out a very un-presidential yelp and there was a satisfying splash that unleashed a fit of laughter in me, and perhaps he could have caught himself, except that I hadn't been kidding about the ridge less than a foot out. Even when Tohma righted himself, me howling all the while, he was still up to the hem of his drenched shirt in ocean water. I relished the sight, Tohma off-balance from the current and shock.

"Are you out of your – _K_!"

I cackled a little more for good measure as I hopped back towards the tideline, careful of his jacket, laughing over my shoulder. He looked too stunned to bull-rush me there on the spot, but if he had a moment of violent spontaneity, I wanted to see it coming.

By the time I made it to the dry shore, he'd gained some degree of his composure and hefted himself out of the drop-off from the ridge. He was mad. I was still laughing to myself before I registered a dripping, purposeful Tohma making his way from the tidal pools towards me in a soaked white t-shirt, that clung to every contour of his torso on one side and whipped in the wind on the other. His light khakis, drenched brown, molded tight around his hips and down his thighs.

Well then.

When he reached the dry sand he raised a finger to me and paused before he spoke, as if he wasn't even sure what was to be said. "There... is something the matter with you." He swiped his shirt from me, me pretending to look chastised, before he realized there wasn't much he could do with it. He shoved it back into my hands and tried to wring out some of the water in the one he was wearing.

"You know Tohma, I think that's going to have to come off. It's fucking cold out here."

If it were anyone other than Tohma, he probably would have taken a swing at that point – but the fact of the matter was I was right. I pretended to mosey on down the beach a couple steps while he stripped out of his undershirt and then tried in vain to squeeze out the saltwater. His pants sat low on him, weighted down by water. He walked along next to me, holding up the shirt in front of him for inspection. He folded it once long-ways and crammed part of it into his back pocket, casting me one more dirty look. I tried to look innocent, and definitely not like I'd been ogling the last drops of salt water sliding down his shoulders. I cleared my throat and held out his navy long-sleeve shirt. "Truce?"

"You didn't even tell me we were fighting!" he said, stretching an arm through one sleeve.

"Because you started it. Or have you forgotten the fish pond."

"_You_ provoked me."

"How?"

Tohma took his jacket back as I offered it to him, and let himself smile. "I don't remember."

* * *

**A/N:** You think perhaps I'm gone but then I KEEP COMING BACK.


End file.
